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Noah -- February 6, 2012 -- bffs, eye candy and group hug.

We thought it would be sweet to hold out a week before posting any of our own words regarding this stellar video that our buds at Tiny Waves put together, and that sweetness has totally settled like a blanket and touched all of our hearts. Just before parting ways in early January a few of us met at Centinela Park in Inglewood, Los Angeles, just a few blocks from the second day location of the fest, and began our New Year with this memorable conversation. Steve Head [aka Dark Sea of Awareness] has described the context of this conversation oh so well, so we’ll share his words here:

FMLY Fest is far from your ordinary music festival. It’s the antithesis of the commercialized spectacle that we’ve all grown accustomed to. Festival goers are afforded a neutral territory free from the restraints and expectations of the traditional concert experience. FMLY stresses the importance of building communities as opposed to icons. We had the great pleasure to chat with the founders of FMLY, Cameron Rath and Noah Klein, about the origin and essence of FMLY, and what we can expect in the future. [via]

Thank you to everyone who has shared such a positive energy for this festival, and everyone who has found something to constructively critique. Among much else we are sharing a dialogue between people and our space, ideas and our time, music and the moment of which it occupies… these last four years together have been nothing but an absolute pleasure, soulful challenge, and opportunity to critically engage with our global society. Let’s feel real.

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fmly fest :: brooklyn

Noah -- January 25, 2012 -- changing the world and group hug.

dear summer of 2k12,

on june 22 & 23 we invite you to participate in our open gathering: a two day celebration of fmly and frnds representing a global community of makers, prosumers, visual/auditory/spatial artists, activists/hacktivists, theorists, writers, cyclists, environmentally conscious foodies, and like minded social do-gooders. over the last three years our festival has carried on a winter fling with california, but as saucy as the relationship is going you can’t imagine how excited we are to spend some quality time with you heartthrobs on the east coast.

fmly fest is a d.i.t. (do it together) music and arts festival, as in we accomplish nothing if we do not take strides for positive transformation together. this is an open call for all zinesters, screen printers, wall doodlers, public space connoisseurs, pillow fort enthusiasts, bedroom recorders, scenic appreciators, urban dissenters, airwave hackers, subway singers, angsty latte flippers, kids who dance their heart out at every show, rap battles, round robins, aerialists, and new friends to come together and create this gorgeous reflection of our community we’ve all been feeling.

to get involved, contact :: fmlyfest@thefmly.com // to keep updated, bookmark // to visualize, watch // to rsvp and invite your friends, check out

first public meeting is on wednesday, february 1. learn more & rsvp here.

♥,
fmly

ps. ahhhh, can’t wait!!!!

“action is the product of the qualities inherent in nature. it is only the ignorant man or woman who, misled by personal egotism, says: ‘i am the doer.’”

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writing our way home

Noah -- December 6, 2011 -- changing the world and group hug.

every important social movement reconfigures the world in the imagination. what was obscure comes forward, lies are revealed, memory shaken, new delineations drawn over the old maps: it is from this new way of seeing the present that hope emerges for the future… let us begin to imagine the worlds we would like to inhabit, the long lives we will share, and the many futures in our hands. -susan griffin

for a long time i’ve felt that the friends i have made as a part of fmly are something closer to kindred spirits than like-minded activists, and taking the last five years to document these relationships in theory, concept, method, and result has only encouraged this loving delusion. so if you’ll allow me to keep rolling with this immersive imagination that i’ve become completely smitten by then i’d love to take this opportunity to introduce you to our collaborative project that has been a long time coming. writing our way home is the first in a series of participatory projects that emphasize our notion of the spiritual diaspora, that is, the discovery of one’s own critical consciousness and the development of this awareness as a tool for collaboration. and please don’t worry if that last sentence didn’t quite make sense, because sense is yours to make and we’re just so ecstatic to have the chance to share it with ya! but i’ll put a hold on my personal sentiments for now, and get to who, what, where, why, and hows of it all ::

writing home is a multilogue that projects your voice into a global quilt of conversation. the discussion: what kind of positive transformation do you imagine for your own environment and the world at large? together we will reveal the transparency of universal myths while celebrating our own individuality. the first collection of postcards will be presented at fmly fest, and in the new year we’ll scan & post all postcards to this tab for referral.

instructions: imagine an improvement within your community. what must we do, together and individually, to see this change happen? you’re encouraged to express your thoughts in the form of a short manifesto, collage, drawing, poem, story, or any other representation of your inspiration. these ideas will be shared throughout the world and you can smile heavy knowing that you are giving a piece of unique knowledge and imagination to a new friend & pen pal. when you feel like you’ve completed your postcard take another peek with your decorative eye. if you’re ready for your thoughts to see mail, read on.

global buds: please get in touch to let us know about your participation and to discuss how and to whom you would like to send your card. we have a giant list of friends from all over the world who would love to write back! plus if you have a great time doing this and would like to participate even further we’d love to help you facilitate this project in your community. if you are mailing your own card we ask that you please send us a clear photo of your cutie face next to your postcard and either attach a scanned copy so that we can appreciate your wisdom or type it out for us if you’re sharing words. these contributions will become part of our physical quilt providing a participatory map to document and archive the idealism shared at this very moment in time.

coming up: we’re hosting workshops to decorate and create postcards in addition to delightful conversation, food, music, and rad times. we’re also speaking with local community spaces in a few cities to set up permanent stations for you to comfortably share and deposit your card for a later pickup. though this project has just begun we have already created a thread across the american coasts reaching into norway, let’s play together to reimagine the world!

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mutual benefit :: the cowboy’s prayer

Noah -- November 20, 2011 -- album reviews, bffs and group hug. Tags: , , .

by nathaniel whitcomb

Mutual Benefit – Auburn Epitaphs

In a few short weeks our strong community of lovers, amongst the rest of the world, will live the rest of their lives embracing this consensus: Mutual Benefit is a boss with the heart of a volunteer. On Jordan Lee’s forthcoming The Cowboy’s Prayer, featuring long-time Mute Benny collaborator & bff Andrew Morehart of Share-a-tories, Marc Merza of Lizard Kisses, and Sammy Yager of Birthdays, there exists this tangible reflection to understand one’s personal desires within the universe at large. In the case of this album, Jordan’s reflections take place during a road trip through his birthplace of the American Midwest. Raised in Ohio, with time spent in Austin, and currently residing in the Boston area, “things are different than they appear” rings a true blue meaning when acknowledging the territories of which Jordan has known home. Too often humanity finds solace in the concept of home, and not often enough there is a voice to remind us that the world beyond our immediate vision is a radically new experience… and that we should hope to explore the faces, places, and headspaces within these regions for the bettering of not only ourselves but those involved in our life. We cannot merely accept diversity, because it is the understanding that we are all one that is necessary. What makes The Cowboy’s Prayer such an enriching experience is that Jordan does not mean to preach this philosophy, but share in the discovery.

The Cowboy’s Prayer, originally a poem made famous by Badger Clark in 1906, is an acknowledgement of the spirituality of knowing salvation in the inherent freedom of man; that if life is not as open as the sky, fluid as the elements, or genuinely honest, then he would prefer not to have involvement in the affairs of the living. Brilliantly, this piece of writing continues to hold value in modern context as Clark shares, “I’m no slave of whistle, clock or bell. Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street,” enforcing his personal belief in working directly as a part of nature as opposed to that which aims to destroy and recreate our shared organic value. Fifty years later Roy Rogers adopts the Cowboy’s Prayer [video] as a sentiment within his Riders Club. Rewritten, yet serving the same message, Rogers shares his own belief in collaboration and understanding nature as a community as opposed to individually. For anyone who has ever had a conversation with Jordan Lee, you’ll agree that these gorgeous themes are revealed as part of his plane of thought immediately. He fronts a solo project that we have never known solo in recording or performance, and curates a record label [Kassette Klub] of global gems that he finds akin. Sounds like a dreamboat to me.

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max alper :: american history sex

Noah -- September 23, 2011 -- album reviews, bffs and group hug.

Max Alper – Dropping Out (Fuck Off)

It is a personal honor and pleasure to debut Max Alper‘s sixth solo collection, American History Sex, as the most recent addition to our group hug. Split into three chapters, the album provides three radical perspectives on the theme of inherent progress in maturation and becoming a part of the natural order among the self. Each chapter serves as coinciding explorations into time, and the methods in which varying applications of sounds can invalidate temporality altogether. Chapters A, B, and C are a discussion which sum two years of Max’s life beginning in the autumn of ’09, and it is up to the listener to take position among the present dialogue.

Max Alper – Good News

Part A [download] is a presentation of sounds that coincide to become songs, both voice and instrumentation becoming the victim of oppression by the other. Lyrically, the narrative is an assault upon the body and what is therefor psychically perceived to be truth when a visual reality has failed. The sky which humanity knows as a ceiling has become an empirical storm, and it is all we can do to stand by one another and develop our own eyes within the clouds above. These sounds are a single beacon, all of which bear equal importance, in the rallying cries for assembly.

Max Alper – Treeman vs. Treeman

Part B [download] is a pasture of free range compositions, or rather compartmentalized communities that consciously bear relevance to one another. Drum circles gather among the shadows of great trees while up the hill the boy who lays on the keys of his piano cries in his sleep. Hindustani ragas permeate our foundation as we approach aural temporality at the macroscopic level, charting melodies for architecture and belief in reshaping the visual.

Max Alper – Ijawawa! (Dans la Forêt Enchantée de Papillons)

Part C [download] is deliberately physical, a union for progression within a wall-to-wall piano composition. The revolution is subtle, but not without fantastic and whimsical texture. This is not a “part c” in which time has decreed an exponential linear progression, but a “part c” that is just as woven within “part a” and “part b” as “part b” and “part a” are as a component of “part c”. Here is the choreography for which our legs will want to follow, now understand where to teach them patience and restraint without neglecting the pleasures of experience.

Exposure to these three chapters is an incredibly intimate and seductive experience. What is it like to crawl through these headphones and momentarily coexist with the representation of these thoughts… with this friends’ performance of mind? American History Sex is a liberation, we’ll see you on the way through. Tracklist after the jump.

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